Measuring Future Grandparents' Preferences for Equality and Relative Standing

Johansson‐Stenman, Olof; Carlsson, Fredrik; Daruvala, Dinky

doi:10.1111/1468-0297.00040

“…The mathematical structure is based on Carlsson et al (2005) and Johansson-Stenman et al (2002), but the question-framing is different.…”

Section: Figure 2 Graphic Illustration Of Income Distributionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The median estimate is the same as that of Johansson-Stenman et al (2002), while higher than that of Carlsson et al (2005). However, our choice context is different to Carlsson et al (2005), where respondents are asked to evaluate different distributions from the perspective of someone who is guaranteed to receive the median income of whichever distribution is chosen.…”

Section: Risk Aversionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Siblings, Not Triplets: Social Preferences for Risk, Inequality and Time in Discounting Climate Change

Atkinson

¹

,

Dietz

²

,

Helgeson

³

et al. 2009

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in AbstractArguments about the appropriate discount rate often start by assuming a Utilitarian social welfare function with isoelastic utility, in which the consumption discount rate is a function of the (constant) elasticity of marginal utility along with the (much discussed) utility discount rate. In this model, the elasticity of marginal utility simultaneously reflects preferences for intertemporal substitution, aversion to risk, and aversion to (spatial) inequality. While these three concepts are necessarily identical in the standard model, this need not be so: well-known models already enable risk to be separated from intertemporal substitution. Separating the three concepts might have important implications for the appropriate discount rate, and hence also for long-term policy. This paper investigates these issues in the context of climate-change economics, by surveying the attitudes of over 3000 people to risk, income inequality over space and income inequality over time. The results suggest that individuals do not see the three concepts as identical, and indeed that preferences over risk, inequality and time are only weakly correlated. As such, relying on empirical evidence of risk or inequality preferences may not necessarily be an appropriate guide to specifying the elasticity of intertemporal substitution. Paper submitted to the special issue "Discounting the Long-Run Future and Sustainable Development" JEL: D01, D63, C90, Q51

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“…In recent years, a number of scholars have investigated individual concerns for relative standing with respect to different goods and personal attributes using survey data (see Hemenway, 1998, 2005;Johansson-Stenman et al, 2002;Alpizar et al, 2005;Solnick et al, 2007;Carlsson et al, 2007;Carlsson and Qin, 2010;Mechtel, 2011, 2012). These papers examine whether participants are willing to sacrifice consumption in absolute terms in order to advance their consumption rank in comparison to others.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How much do others matter? Explaining positional concerns for different goods and personal characteristics

Hillesheim¹,

Mechtel

²

2013

Journal of Economic Psychology

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in EconStor may AbstractWe test concerns for relative standing with respect to private consumption, income, leisure, savings, and personal characteristics, using data from a classroom survey. Our results show highest degrees of positionality for personal characteristics and income. In order to explain positionality, we employ survey participants' ratings of items with respect to (i) observability and (ii) non-psychological negative externalities on others. Based on these ratings, our results show that non-psychological externalities play an important role for an item's degree of positionality. In contrast to previous research, we find that there is no statistically significant effect of an item's observability on its degree of positionality.

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“…By extending the definition in Johansson-Stenman et al (2002) to allow for leisureweighted consumption comparisons, we define the degree of positionality for ability-…”

Section: Individual Preferences and Optimizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…2 Yet, and somewhat paradoxically given the title and content of Veblen's book, almost the entire literature dealing with optimal tax and expenditure responses to relative consumption comparisons has ignored the role of leisure in such comparisons. 1 This empirical evidence includes happiness research (e.g., Easterlin 2001; Blanchflower and Oswald 2004;Ferrer-i-Carbonell 2005;Luttmer 2005;Clark and Senik 2010), questionnaire-based experiments (e.g., Johansson-Stenman et al 2002;Solnick and Hemenway 2005;Carlsson et al 2007;Corazzini, Esposito and Majorano, forthcoming), and, more recently, brain science (Fliessbach et al 2007;Dohmen et al forthcoming). There are also recent evolutionary models consistent with relative consumption concerns (Samuelson 2004;Rayo and Becker 2007).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Veblen’s theory of the leisure class revisited: implications for optimal income taxation

Aronsson

¹

,

Johansson‐Stenman

²

2012

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Several previous studies have demonstrated the importance of relative consumption comparisons for public policy. Yet, almost all of them have ignored the role of leisure for status comparisons. Inspired by Veblen (1899), this paper assumes that people care about their relative consumption and that leisure has a displaying role in making relative consumption more visible, based on a two-type model of optimal income taxation. While increased importance of relative consumption typically implies higher marginal income tax rates, in line with previous research, the effect of leisure-induced consumption visibility is to make the income tax more regressive in terms of ability.Keywords: optimal taxation, redistribution, relative consumption, status, positional goods, conspicuous consumption. Closely related to the requirement that the gentleman must consume freely and of the right kind of goods, there is the requirement that he must know how to consume them in a seemly manner.His life of leisure must be conducted in due form… Veblen (1899, chapter 4)

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Measuring Future Grandparents' Preferences for Equality and Relative Standing

Cited by 317 publications

References 54 publications

Siblings, Not Triplets: Social Preferences for Risk, Inequality and Time in Discounting Climate Change

Siblings, Not Triplets: Social Preferences for Risk, Inequality and Time in Discounting Climate Change

How much do others matter? Explaining positional concerns for different goods and personal characteristics

Veblen’s theory of the leisure class revisited: implications for optimal income taxation

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